


Brave Face Talk

by GhostLightIfYouWill



Category: Law & Order: SVU
Genre: Don't worry, First Time, Gay yearning, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sexual Tension, Soulmarks, Soulmates, non-graphic depictions of sex, there's a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-03 19:55:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24901165
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GhostLightIfYouWill/pseuds/GhostLightIfYouWill
Summary: Sonny and Rafael are soulmates, but Rafael struggles to let Sonny in, and Sonny works to learn what the colors of his soulmark mean.
Relationships: Rafael Barba/Dominick "Sonny" Carisi Jr.
Comments: 10
Kudos: 71
Collections: Barisi Pride 2020





	Brave Face Talk

**Author's Note:**

> For the June Barisi Challenge: Orange + Soulmates
> 
> Title from Dodie Clark’s Sick of Losing Soulmates. 
> 
> Thank you to sarahcakes613 for the beta. 
> 
> Find me on Twitter: @breathemusicin

Sonny Carisi was sixteen years old when his soul mark appeared on his left wrist. It was a thick, black outline of a tie that contrasted beautifully against his pale skin. Impossible to miss. 

“Your soulmate will have the same mark,” his mother had explained to him. 

“What if I don’t like her?” Sonny had asked, and his mother had laughed, the wrinkles on her eyes crinkling. 

“You’ll be okay. Your father and I don’t have the same mark. You always have a choice, Sonny. God gave us that ability.” 

“Oh, okay,” Sonny had nodded, a weight leaving his chest. 

Over the next twenty years, Sonny felt oddly secure in the colorless mark on his wrist. Even on prom night when he somehow managed to get Katie Hopper naked at the end of the night only to find out their soulmarks didn’t match. Even when Bella found her soulmate and refused to shut up about him and how much she loved him despite the rest of the family’s opinions. Still, Sonny never hid his mark. Never felt like he had to. 

His soulmark remained colorless until his first briefing with the squad and the ADA in Manhattan, when it flashed red. Then yellow. Lingered on orange, for just a moment. Sonny told no one. 

For two months, his soulmark was a pale shade of orange. Sometimes red. Sometimes yellow. He had always expected to see more colors, to see more of how his soulmate was feeling. He had certainly expected a wider range than three colors. He had always expected to _know…_ who...why. His mother had told him, after all, that having a soulmate was more than just having matching marks; it was also reading their colors, knowing them as well as you know yourself and your own feelings, if not better. She had a remarkable amount of wisdom for a woman who didn’t marry her soulmate. 

One night, after a particularly tough case, he got roped into delivering case notes to Rafael at the end of the day. Dealing with snarky, underhanded comments from the ADA was the absolute last thing that Sonny wanted to do. He was already emotionally— and physically— battered, and he just wanted to go home and fall asleep staring at the yellow that had colored his soulmark for the entirety of that day. 

Still, he had a job to do, so Sonny trekked over to One Hogan Place. 

“Hey, Sonny!” Joe greeted Sonny with a familiar Staten Island accent, letting him into the building. 

Joe was the only guy to call him Sonny since his transfer to Manhattan, and he was grateful for it.

“Joe, hi!” 

“Here for Mr. Barba?” 

“Unfortunately,” Sonny groaned, holding up the files. “Something about fucking up case notes. Again.” 

Joe nodded knowingly. He was only in his sixties, but there was something that always struck Sonny as wise— almost all-knowing— about the older man. 

“It’s been crazy around here, lately. Take care of him.” 

Sonny looked at him quizzically, but said, “Yeah, I’ll do that. You have a nice night.” 

When he reached Rafael’s office, it was clear that Carmen was long gone. He entered Rafael’s office after rapping his knuckles against the frame and receiving no response. 

“Hey, Counselor, I have those files you asked for.”

“You can put them here with the rest of them,” Rafael said, not looking up from his intense scrawling. 

“Late night?” Sonny approached Rafael’s desk and slid his files on top of the others. 

He took a second to admire Rafael’s dedication, how he spent late nights prepping, doing whatever he had to in order to ensure he did right by the victims. 

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” he whispered.

Sonny’s heart soared and then dropped hard and heavy when he caught a glimpse of Rafael’s soulmark in the lamplight: a tie, also colorless, on the inside of his left wrist. Soulmates’ marks usually weren’t in identical places, Sonny had learned in his research. Sonny could feel the color drain from his face, and he grabbed onto the chair to steady himself as his head began to swim. 

“You look sick, Detective,” Rafael commented neutrally, his eyes flickering between his paperwork and Sonny’s face. 

Sonny's eyes were still trained on Rafael’s wrist, where the soulmark had turned a shade of bright green. Rafael followed Sonny’s gaze.

“Go,” Rafael said. Sonny stood there staring at him, and Rafael pulled down his sleeves. “Go home, Carisi.” 

“Are we not going to talk about this?”

Sonny held his left wrist out to make his point. 

“There’s nothing to talk about. Are we clear?”

Sonny nodded quickly, feeling oddly like a bobblehead. He nearly tripped over himself exiting Rafael’s office and the building, leaving Joe with only a perfunctory head nod. The second he got out into the crisp night air, he dialed his mother. 

“Hey, Ma.” 

“Dominick, honey, how are you?” Sofia asked. 

“I’m not sure, Ma.”

Sonny felt a little like vomiting, but other than that, he felt nothing. It occurred to him that Rafael probably knew more about how he was feeling. Yet, as he looked at his wrist, he couldn’t be sure what Rafael was feeling. 

“Sonny, you sound like you’re going to cry. Talk to me, _tesoro_.” 

Sonny wished he could see the concern in her eyes and the furrow in her brow, but he let himself be comforted by her voice. 

“I, uh, found my soulmate,” Sonny whispered, almost as if saying it quietly meant that he could ignore it. 

“Okay. Tell me about her.” 

“Oh, see, that’s the problem, Ma,” he started, unsure of how to tell her. “ _Shit—_ ”

“Language,” she chided. 

“Sorry. I just—” 

“Is she not what you expected?” she finished. 

Sonny marveled for a second at how his mother has always just been there for him, understood him so well that he didn’t even need to say a word, even over the phone, for her to know. She wasn’t like that with his sisters; it was just him, and he prayed to God every night, asking Him to keep his mother safe. 

“You could say that.” 

“Is she married? You don’t like the way she looks? What’s the problem, sweetheart?”

“No! None of that. Single. Very attractive, which is the problem, I guess. He’s an asshole, Ma.” 

“ _He_ ,” she repeated, clearly shocked. 

“I know. I was surprised too.” 

She hums thoughtfully. 

“Like I told you when you were sixteen, you don’t have to be with your soulmate.” 

“What if I don’t want to? What if I do want to, y’know, be with him, Ma?” 

“You _just_ told me he’s an asshole, Sonny. I don’t care about the ‘he’ part. I care about the ‘asshole’ part.” 

Sonny let out a sigh of relief. Sonny had always been open-minded, and as close as he and Sofia were, he had no idea how she’d react. 

“That wasn’t the right word. He’s just _cold_. With most people. Usually not with me, actually. He teases me about night school and stuff, but it’s flirtatious. I went to his office tonight, and he found out... saw my mark and kicked me out.” 

“Do you work with this guy?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Sofia said, sucking at her teeth. “This is what we’re going to do, Sonny. You’re coming home for mass this weekend. You avoid him as much as you can, and we’ll talk about it then.” 

“I—”

“ _After_ your father has gone to bed. I’ll even break out the caramels and Kahlua for the coffee. How does that sound, _tesoro_?”

“That sounds great, Ma,” he said truthfully, before telling her he loved her and hanging up. 

He bit his lip and looked up at the sky, trying not to cry. He prayed to God silently— for his mother, for Rafael, for _guidance_. The rest of the night, he didn’t look at his wrist.

* * *

After his conversation with his mother that Sunday night, Sonny felt better. Sofia had made him talk to his priest, which had been extremely helpful: “Sonny, God gave you and your soulmate matching marks for a reason. If it’s meant to be, it’ll be. Don’t take less than you deserve though.” 

She had also been true to her word, breaking out her homemade soft caramels and pouring a nip of Kahlua in their decaf coffees, all while smiling sweetly at him. She had brushed his cheek with her thumb and made him tell her everything about his soulmate. And he did. He had poured his heart out about Rafael deep into the night. 

“I should at least try, shouldn’t I, Ma?” he had asked. 

“Is that what your heart is telling you to do?” He had nodded. “Then that’s what you’re gonna do, Sonny. Go to bed. You have work in the morning.”

He really did feel _okay_ until he was called into Rafael’s office late that night, again after Carmen had already gone home. 

“What do you need, Counselor?” Sonny asked, staying close to the door, in case he decided he needed to beat a hasty retreat. 

Rafael was sitting with his feet up on his desk, his iPad sitting in his lap as he scrolled. 

“Come in, sit down,” Rafael said, gesturing to the seat across from him and closing the case on his iPad and placing on his desk. 

Sonny sat down, folding his hands awkwardly in his lap. 

“Detective, I wanted to apologize for my behavior last week. That was highly unprofessional.” 

Sonny bristled visibly. _Of course it wasn’t professional_ , he wanted to scream. What part about being soulmates was professional even in the slightest?

“I—” 

“No. I would like to finish, thank you. Carisi, I never believed in soulmates. I never expected to find my soulmate, and I...” 

“...and you didn’t expect it to be me,” Sonny finished. “Look, I understand I’m not some Harvard hotshot, Counselor, but—”

“No, Carisi, you’re not. That’s not the problem. Neither is your accent or your inability to dress yourself. At risk of being too transparent, I have to admit that the accent is kind of charming. Although, the dressing thing? Hmm… I suppose you’re teachable, so I could—” 

“You’re rambling. I’ve never seen you ramble.” 

Rafael rolled his eyes and continued on, “You’re smart. You’re just a lot. And it’s not that I can’t handle you. Or that I don’t want to. It’s just that I—”

“Don’t know how to.” 

“Stop finishing my sentences.” 

“Sorry, it’s the, uh, soulmate thing, I guess, I—” 

Sonny winced and shut his mouth at Rafael’s glare. 

“I don’t believe in soulmates, Detective. I want my love life and my life partner to be a choice. I don’t want to be forced into something because of some stupid fucking mark that says that we’re supposed to love and honor and obey.”

“I’m going to ignore your conflation of soulmates and marriage because—” 

“Conflation. Been reading the dictionary before bed?” 

There it was: that asshole behavior he told his ma about. He knew that Rafael was praising him, but he was being a dick about it. While he would usually take some sort of pride in that comment, he found his blood boiling instead. He winced at the thought of Rafael’s soulmark flooding with color. 

“You rather I call you a dumbass for having feelings? Because I won’t do that. Ever. Still doesn’t mean I’m gonna feed into your bullshit logical fallacies. So don’t deflect, Counselor.” Rafael raised his hands in surrender, gesturing for Sonny to continue with his thoughts. “So you, what, don’t even want to try? To see if you could ‘ _want_ ’ me?” 

Rafael swallowed audibly, and Sonny shifted in his seat. 

“My parents were soulmates,” Rafael said, grimacing. 

“Mine weren’t,” Sonny replied.

Rafael knew that Sonny’s parents were still together and disgustingly in love, at that. 

“That only bolsters _my_ point, Carisi.” 

“I don’t want to argue with you, Rafael. We’re soulmates. The least you can do is—”

“Will you stop saying that?” Rafael huffed angrily. 

“Just say you’re scared and go, Barba. Stop being a bitch.”

Sonny instantly regretted speaking to their ADA like that, but this particular ADA also happened to be his soulmate. His who _was,_ by all accounts, being a bitch. 

“Excuse me?” 

“You heard me. You don’t wanna be with me? You wanna ignore what we have here? Fine. Just— stop being a bitch about it.”

“We don’t have anything _here_ , Detective.”

“You’ve made that clear. But we could.” 

“No, we clearly couldn’t. I’m too much of a _bitch_.” 

“Goddammit, Rafael.”

Sonny stood up and began to pace between the desk and the door. 

“Nope. I reserve that title for people I care about.”

“You clearly care!” Sonny took a few steps around the desk between them, perched himself on a stack of Rafael’s paperwork, and presented his wrist, where his soulmark flared bright red. “Care to tell me what red means?” 

“No, I don’t,” Rafael said, jaw locking so tightly Sonny is sure he can hear the click. 

“I’m gonna assume it’s anger,” Sonny ventured. “Because you sound pretty angry right now.” 

“It’s not anger, smartass.” 

Sonny opened his mouth to fire back, but Rafael cut him off with a quick flourish of his hand. Sonny tried to catch a glimpse of Rafael’s soulmark. He’d bet his entire life savings that it was a deep shade of purple. 

“Stop looking at me like that,” Rafael demanded. 

“What color is it?” 

Rafael popped the button on his shirt and shoved his sleeve back to show his wrist to Sonny. Without thinking, Sonny grabbed Rafael’s hand and pulled it closer to examine his soulmark. He looked up to look

“Wanna guess what purple is?” 

“No, I really don’t,” Rafael sighed and pulled his hand back, rolling his sleeve back down.

“I think you know,” Sonny whispered. 

Rafael bit his lip and leaned in closer. Sonny’s eyes fluttered. 

“Look, I need you to leave, Sonny.” 

“Really? The first time you call me by my name, and it’s to tell me to leave.”

“Dammit. This isn’t— I don’t—”

Sonny held his wrist out until Rafael looked at it, _really_ looked at it. He had a feeling deep in his tummy that his purple was Rafael’s red. 

“Know how you feel? I think this is pretty clear. Red is what? Lust? You wanna fuck me, Barba?” Sonny challenged. 

“I wouldn’t— I’m not— I don’t— _Fuck_. Go.”

Sonny knew he was right in his accusation. He also knew that Rafael wasn’t going to cop to it. 

“If I leave, I’m not coming back around. I don’t play games, Rafael.”

Rafael regarded Sonny for a minute and then nodded. 

“I’ll see you at work tomorrow, Detective.” 

The rest of that night, Sonny’s soulmark bled yellow. 

* * *

He was sure something was wrong with the bond. Or something was wrong with him. Or Rafael. It took time to come to peace with the situation. He talked to his Ma and his priest countless times, and a few months later, Sonny had given up on his soulmate. After telling his mother as much, a package showed up at his door: several _nice_ watches. There was a note attached: “You’ll get through this, _tesoro_ . _Ti amo. Sempre._ ” Sonny cried one last time before throwing on a watch and moving on with his life. A life without his soulmate. 

* * *

Sonny was grateful that he was able to ignore Rafael at work until a case involved his family. Luckily, Rafael did his job, and he did it well, as usually. 

The Sunday following the guilty verdict, the whole family went to Staten Island. Sonny had had to beg Bella to not invite Rafael. His mother made a giant pot of soup and thrust a container in his hand before he could leave that night. 

“Take this to him,” she said, grabbing his hand and rubbing her thumb gently across his soulmark. “I know you don’t want to be around him because of this, _tesoro,_ but he did right by your sister, by our family.” 

“I know,” Sonny smiled. “I’ll take it to him after work tomorrow.” 

True to his word, on his way to Rafael’s office the next night, he picked up a bottle of Rafael’s favorite scotch, handing it to the cashier and all but begging him just to swipe his card and not tell him the price. 

He greeted Joe as usual, explaining his gifts and knocked on Rafael’s door, slipping in quietly. 

“Here’s some soup from my ma,” Sonny said, placing the container on his desk, out of the way. “As a thank you for helping my family. I appreciate it more than I can say.” 

“You don’t need to say,” Rafael said, indicating his wrist. “You can just tell me you made me soup, Carisi. I won’t think any less of you.” 

“No, really, the soup is from my ma. This is from me,” Sonny said, setting the gift bag on the desk right in the middle of Rafael’s paperwork, so he wouldn’t be able to ignore it.

Rafael slid the bottle out of the bag and rotated it, almost as if admiring the bottle. The way the amber liquid caught the dim lighting from Rafael’s desk lamp was captivating, but Sonny was still more entranced by the green and golden flecks in Rafael’s eyes. 

“This is expensive, Detective,” Rafael commented. 

“I know.”

“You didn’t have to—”

“I wanted to.”

Sonny’s soulmark flashed bright yellow, and then faded back to a pale orange shade. The same orange shade it had been for months. Sometimes it was red, sometimes yellow, mostly that pale shade of orange. 

“Your sister cornered me after the trial.” 

“Oh, sorry about that. She’s—” 

“She knows.”

“I told her. See, she wanted to invite you to this party we were having and I told her I didn’t want you there.” 

“I make you that uncomfortable?” 

“Not at all. I feel too comfortable around you,” Sonny explained, shaking his head.

Rafael breathed in deeply, and they stared at each other for a few moments. The tension hanging in the air made it clear that they were playing a game, each waiting for the other to break. In the end, it was Rafael who broke the silence. 

“I can’t say I have anything as good as this scotch at home, but I’d like you to come back to mine for a drink.”

“There’s you, so that’s a start,” Sonny said, offering a small smile. 

“My dick, too, if you want it.”

“I want it,” Sonny admitted, swallowing thickly and nodding. 

He wasn’t sure how to feel about Rafael being so forward, but he couldn’t ignore the way the proposition made his tummy stir. 

“Good.”

Sonny followed Rafael home and let him take the lead. Rafael was going to call the shots. Sonny was so incredibly glad to have Rafael Barba— his soulmate— at his fingertips like this that he wasn’t going to risk fucking it up. 

The moment they got into Rafael’s apartment, he suggested skipping the drinks, to which Sonny agreed happily, letting himself be pulled to the bedroom, a trail of clothes being left in their wake. Sonny only had a few seconds to marvel at the fact that Rafael was being so reckless with his clothing because the next thing he knew, he was being pushed onto the bed, where he fell with a soft thud. The landing knocked the breath out of his lungs, but nothing made it harder to breathe than the sight of Rafael on top of him, breathing heavily, pupils dilated, mouth wet and kiss-bruised. 

“Make love to me, Sonny,” Rafael whispered. 

That was all Sonny needed to hear. 

* * *

Afterwards, Rafael cuddled up close to Sonny, tracing indiscernible patterns into the soft skin of Sonny’s hip. 

“You didn’t tell me what the orange means, ya know.” Sonny presented his wrist to Rafael, where it was burning bright yellow-orange. “Wanna let me in?”

“I believe I already did that. I think I’ll feel it for a week,” Rafael teased, kissing Sonny’s chest, just above his heart. 

“You’re welcome,” Sonny laughed. “I mean it though.” 

“Oh, well, I’ve never put much stock into this soulmate business.” 

“I know that. I already know what red means. Haven’t figured out the yellow or the orange.” 

“Well, the yellow is when I’m thinking about you. Nice thoughts. Happy thoughts. It’s new. I like it,” Rafael said slowly and quietly. 

“So it’s love.” 

“I— didn’t say that.” 

“I mean, you kind of did.” Rafael fixed him with a glare, but the bright yellow on his wrist showed he truly felt otherwise. “And the orange?”

“Both.”

“So you wanna fuck me _and_ love me?” 

“Something like that,” Rafael smiled. 

“What about the rest of your emotions? Why can’t I see those?” Sonny asked. 

“Would it be unbearably cheesy if I said you’re all that has mattered to me since that night?” 

“Yeah,” Sonny scoffed in disbelief. 

“Well, it’s mostly true. I’m sorry if you don’t know how I feel— well, no, that you can’t, I don’t know, _see_ my colors? Because, honestly, you know how I feel without the colors, so, at least I think you do, and—”

“Maybe that’s it!” Sonny nearly shouted, his eyes lighting up. “I know you so well that I don’t see more than those few colors. Yeah.”

“That doesn’t make sense because—”

“Shh. It’ll help me sleep at night.” 

“Okay, then I’ll let it go,” Rafael conceded, pressing a kiss to Sonny’s temple. 

“I love you too, Rafael,” Sonny whispered. 

“Can we take this slow?” 

“Yeah, I’ll return the ring first thing tomorrow,” Sonny joked, but Rafael looked horrified. “I’m fucking with you. Of course we can take things slow. We have all the time in the world.”

“Together, though, right?” 

Sonny grabbed Rafael’s hand, intertwining their fingers, and kissed him deeply.

“Yeah. Together.” 

* * *

Sonny and Rafael truly intended on taking it slowly, but less than a year later, they were standing hand in hand in the Carisi family’s backyard in Staten Island with Mike and Amanda at Sonny’s side and Olivia and Rita at Rafael’s. Noah was standing with two rings on a pillow, and Jessie threw flowers. Everyone in attendance had tears in their eyes, especially Sofia Carisi and Joe the night guard.

To Sonny and Rafael, though, the only person that mattered was the man standing before them. The moment Rafael looked Sonny in the eyes and whispered “I do,” Sonny’s soulmark burned bright orange.

**Author's Note:**

> World building is hard. :( Feel free to discuss the story in the comments, or reach out to me personally.


End file.
